Top Trends in Texas Commercial Rea Estate

In 2017, Texas led the country in commercial real estate development according to a report issued by NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. The sector is responsible for nearly 380,000 jobs throughout the state both in construction and in ancillary support industries. Buying or selling commercial real estate in the Lone Star State can be a very complex transaction, so a commercial real estate lawyer Austin TX can be a valuable resource.

Top Issues for Commercial Real Estate in Texas

A number of issues of concern are emerging for Texas developers who specialize in commercial real estate. Among them are:

• Climate Change

For the last six consecutive years, sea levels have risen. The sea level today is a full three inches higher than it was in 2003. Coastline flooding has also increased between 300 and 900 percent in the last half century.

Commercial developers in the Lone Star State’s coastal cities such as Houston and Galveston are well aware of this trend. They’re making changes in the ways buildings are designed that offer some measure of flood protection; these changes include setting minimum elevation heights and relocating electrical infrastructure out of building basements.

• The Urbanization of Suburbs

Millennials are a demographic group that’s 75 million strong. Many Millennials are starting families now and moving to the suburbs, but they still keep many of the habits of their youth. Among those preferences is a distaste for driving. In order to be appealing to Millennials, suburbs will need to be refurbished to include retail, dining and entertainment centers that rival the amenities that can be found in urban neighborhoods.

• Shifting Consumer Preferences

Consumers have embraced e-commerce enthusiastically, and that love affair is likely to grow more torrid over the next decade. That means that businesses will come to rely less and less upon brick-and-mortar stores and those great mall temples in which those stores cluster. Construction on shopping centers hasn’t stopped: In 2017, Bloomberg News reports, builders spent $1.6 billion constructing new malls. You can expect that spending to get less and less, though, as e-commerce grows stronger and stronger.